This invention relates to a cooling mechanism for a stator coil of a motor/generator.
Tokkai Sho 53-95207 published by the Japanese Patent Office in 1978 and Japanese Patent 2716286 issued by the Japanese Patent Office in 1997 disclose a cooling mechanism for a synchronous motor that has a stator provided with a plurality of coils and disposed about a rotor. When the coils are provided with an alternating current with a fixed phase difference, a rotating magnetic field is formed to rotate the rotor. During this operation, the cores onto which the coils are wound generate heat. In order to perform cooling of the coils and cores, the cooling mechanism according to the prior arts provides a cooling medium into slots formed in the stator to accommodate the coils.
In order to even out the temperature of the coils, it is necessary to distribute the cooling medium evenly to the respective slots. However, the cooling mechanism according to the prior arts does not have such a function.
It is therefore an object of this invention to accomplish even cooling of the stator coils.
In order to achieve the above object, this invention provides a motor/generator comprising rotation shaft, a rotor fixed to the rotation shaft and provided with a magnet, and a cylindrical stator having both end faces orthogonally disposed with respect to the rotation shaft. The stator has a plurality of slots and coils are disposed on an inner side of the slots. Each slot has a first opening facing an outer periphery of the rotor, a second opening formed on one end face of the stator and a third opening formed on the other end face of the stator. The motor/generator further comprises covers closing the first openings of the slots, a first cooling liquid chamber facing the second openings of the slots and a second cooling liquid chamber facing the third openings of the slots. The first cooling liquid chamber has a supply port of cooling liquid and an equalizing member equalizing a distribution of cooling liquid from the supply port to each slot. The slots are functioning to form a flow of cooling liquid between the first liquid cooling chamber and the second liquid cooling chamber.
The details as well as other features and advantages of this invention are set forth in the remainder of the specification and are shown in the accompanying drawings.